Forewarning:

Many of the following web pages are very large in nature and will take a while to download. If you are patient once they page has fully downloaded you can use your browsers find feature to seach for individuals.

Kentucky Delayed Birth Certificate Index

Contributed by John Cooper

Kentucky started keeping birth and death records in 1852, stopped in 1862,
started again in 1874, but didnít get serious about it until 1 January 1911.
Before that date, births and deaths were recorded at the county level and copies were forwarded to the state once a year. Surviving birth records are mostly for the years 1852-1861, 1874-1879 and 1900-1910. Because of official indifference and neglect, no records are extant for many of the years before 1911. People lacking official certificates could file delayed birth certificates with the state. This became common starting around 1940 due to the requirements of Social Security and military service. According to Roseann Hogan, "Kentuckians have filed over a half-million of these delayed certificates... Social Security, for a time, accepted completed certificates that were not filed with the Department of Vital Statistics in Frankfort. Therefore, it is possible, that even if no official certificate can be found in Frankfort, a certificate may have been filed with Social Security or other government agencies." (Kentucky Ancestry, page 79)

In Kentucky, the Department of Vital Statistics has most of the delayed birth
certificates. There is an index on microfiche which can only be consulted at the Department. The Kentucky Historical Society also has 45 rolls of microfilmed delayed birth certificates. According to Ms. Hogan KHS also has an index. My impression, gathered from searching for Owsley County birth records, is that there is no single index to all the delayed birth certificates and that the KHS rolls are not included in the VS microfiche.

This listing is based on the computerized index from the Kentucky Health Data
Branch. None of these 45,000 entries seem to be in the KHS rolls or the VS
microfiche?!? This index has name, date of birth, county, motherís maiden name, volume & certificate number. Copies of certificates may be ordered from the Department of Vital Statistics, 275 Main St., Frankfort KY 40601.

The following links are organized by last name. They are identical to what you find in one in the year indexes above for 1873-1910 but indexed by last name instead of year. FOREWARNING:These are very large slow loading files, but if you let them load completely you can use your browsers 'find' option to search